Hell Ain'T Half Full Yet

Many years ago, in the 1970s, when I was living in Los Angeles, I was driving down Sunset Boulevard and I saw a bumper sticker I have never forgotten. Has it ever happened to you, friend, where you see a bumper sticker and the message on it really stirs your emotions? Well, this happened to me that day. This car was in front of me, and it had a bumper sticker with a red laughing demon on it, and it read, speed on, brother, hell ain't half full yet.

Well, there's a Bible verse that corresponds to that bumper sticker, and it's found in the book of Proverbs. In Proverbs 27 20, we read, hell and destruction are never full. Think about all the tortured souls and hell at the sour, friend.

Hell's been described by our Lord Jesus as a bottomless pit. I would imagine there's plenty of room in a bottomless pit. It's been estimated that 83 people a minute die without Christ.

They can be atheist or agnostic or members of world religions. They can be unconverted church members or even unsafe pastors, but 83 souls every minute drop down into hell's torments. Do the math.

That's around 5,000 people an hour. That's 120,000 every day that are cast into hell. That adds up to 840,000 people a week that are shut up in there to holler and scream.

That's 3.4 million every month who are cast into hell. In the course of a year, that adds up to over 40 million individuals who die and end up in hell. The numbers are staggering.

Let 10 years go by, and you have another 400 million people who will open their eyes in the prison of hell. Now imagine all the people who have lived on this earth since the days of Noah, and the numbers are hard to fathom about how full hell is yet. Hell ain't half full yet.

And that's the title of my message this evening, friends. Hell ain't half full. And my text is Proverbs 2720.

Hell and destruction are never full. Think about that, friend. Would there ever come a day when the demons in charge of the gates of hell throw up their hands in desperation and cry out, no more.

There's no more room in here. No more. No, that's not possible, friend.

Because the word of God declares hell and destruction are never full. In other words, there's always room for more in hell. I want to explore a few aspects of hell this evening, friends.

It bothers me deeply that there are so few sermons preached on hell in our day. But I saw one on Sermon Audio last week that was posted by a pastor I'm familiar with, and I was glad he preached such a stirring message on hell. But you'd be hard-pressed to hear many sermons on hell in this hell-bound society today.

Well, I want to look at several aspects on the doctrine of hell this evening. Number one, people need to be warned not to go to hell. We need to tell them about hell and its agonies so they won't rush in there.

We need to warn this hell-bent nation to flee from the wrath to come, that God is a righteous judge who must punish sin. Mankind at large is a nest of lawbreakers and rebels who are under the condemnation of a holy God, and that the sentencing of the law must be carried out upon all lawbreakers. So people need to be warned not to go to hell.

Number two, we need to describe the agonies and terrors of hell to the lost so as to awaken them to their lost condition. Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, so warmed his subject that night in Enfield, Connecticut, that his hearers felt the heels of the soles of their feet growing hot from the fires below that were raging up towards them. A stout man hung on to the pillars of the church in the sanctuary so not to drop down into hell, and the shouts of his hearers grew so loud and alarming as he described the horrors of hell that an eyewitness stated, Ye minister had to desist from preaching because of the shrieks throughout the meeting house.

I've walked that ground in Enfield, Connecticut, where that church once stood. It's an empty field now with a Lordstone marker that commemorates that sermon by Jonathan Edwards. The Puritan preachers knew the benefits of preaching on the doctrine of hell to awaken and alarm the lost to flee to the only refuge that can be found in the Lord Jesus Christ, the remedy for sin.

3. We need to preach the full counsel of God, which declares both his mercy and his justice. God is a merciful God who is long-suffering, not willing for any to perish, so the apostle Peter declares to us. But Peter also preaches about the justice of God and the terrors of hell.

Listen to 2 Peter 2, 4-6. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly. Do you see the need, friends, to be faithful to the whole counsel of God, and preach the God of the Bible, who hates sin and who must punish sin, by sending lawbreakers to another region called hell? Hell ain't half full yet, for hell and destruction are never full.

If you are unsafe, friend, it would be a terrible thing to die apart from Christ and to open your eyes in hell. Hell is a horrible place, friend. Hell is a never-ending punishment, friend.

Hell is a prison from which you can never escape, friend. Don't go to hell, friend. I plead with you not to go there.

Look unto Jesus, the only remedy and refuge for sin. Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.

If you miss Christ, friend, you will surely end up in the torments of hell, and your fellow inmates will drive you mad with their incessant screams. Get to Christ, friend, before it's too late. Exercise repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.